Week 78 – So long soldier – Elder Gideon Tonkinson, Washington Everett Mission

Hey, So yesterday Elder Edwards left. The good news is he’s home safe, and I’m staying in the area and will hopefully get to see our 3 friends on date be baptized. The sad part is he’s gone. It’s weird, but I’m motivated for this next transfer. Also I’m pretty sure I know who my companion will be. He was called to Chile and has not gone yet and has not be assigned Spanish yet so we’ll see how good that’ll be. Anyways his name is Elder Christian Christiansen, and it’ll be interesting and good. I’m excited.

Anyways looking back this week, it was pretty good. We had two exchanges which wasn’t too bad. For the first one I went to SYSA, and it was pretty cool. We had a lesson with a guy named Nathan who is a member and a software engineer for Amazon do that was pretty cool. We kinda for like 5 minutes geeked out about computers and he said that one of the coolest classes he took was a compiler class where he made a compiler in assembly… Yeah sounds crazy to me, but cool.

Then we on Wednesday, we attended a great district council about covenants from Elder Hill. His preassignement was awesome! He gave us resources to study all the covenants we have made thus far. The one’s on the temple were incredible and the section on consecration was fantastic. It really hit me that consecration is the highest law we can live. We don’t just give to God but as cliche as it sounds we live for Him. We give our time, means, talents and most interestingly our capacities. I love that. It’s not just about what we are but what we are becoming that needs to given to God. So we work to grow to be the best we can be to fulfill His purposes… Awe man it was fantastic.

Then Wednesday night we put our friend Silver on date for July 18th. He’s so awesome he also asked if he could do any service with us through the church. Then Thursday we had another exchange. Elder Cowley and I stayed up until 3:15 talking haha. He imparted upon me lots of wisdom, as he also left yesterday. That exchange was good, and we worked hard even biking in the heat. Then let’s see jumping to Saturday we had a dinner lesson with the stake president (President McCall), his wife and their granddaughter (McKenna) who is almost 8. So we talked about baptism which was pretty fun.

Then in Sunday Elder Edwards spoke and Sister McCall speaks Spanish and goes to the branch so I had to translate for McKenna. It went better than I thought so I was pleased. Then we took Elder Cowley and Elder Edwards to the mission office and then said goodbye to them and Elder Durbano. Funny thing was Elder Edwards had too much weight, and so he was out by the dump chucking stuff. Since then it’s been busy we had three lessons yesterday and a little empty and sad with just Elder DeLlamas (Elder Cowley’s last comp) but hey life goes on. Things are going to be good these next 6 weeks. Time to work hard.
Questions –
How are you handling the heatwave? – It’s not too bad. Just a little hot at night but it could be worse. Just take a cold shower and it’s all good.
What have you learned from your companion this week? – I think I may have said this but enduring to the end
Share a tender mercy you have received recently. – Seeing so many people change and start to be ready for baptism
One way your mission has changed you. – I think I’m actually understanding more than before why the gospel is important and the end goal of the Plan of Salvation. It’s cool. But it’s hard to see changes
What are you grateful for today? – Air conditioned church buildings